A Coffee Dilemma

[Missjune75]

I just received two pounds of delicious (holy cow) Bolivian coffee beans from fellow coffee forum roaster Musicphan Encore Coffee Company. That usually will last me two weeks.
However, my friends just surprised me with 12 oz of my favorite NYC roaster/cafe Gimmee Coffee Kenya beans. How do I keep both fresh. I don't want to freeze them and I have a few more canisters to keep them in but not sure what my best option is besides stay up for the next two weeks drinking delicious coffee. The Kenya coffee is still in its bag unopened. The Bolivian is in a canister.
Any suggestions would be most welcome.
Btw thanks Ensoluna for the Contigo suggestion. I love that thermos and fill the whole 20 oz container to work with me everyday. It was well worth the $10.

 

[ensoluna]

please do not freeze the roasted beans. that is not good.
you can use vacuum canisters to store them. that is what we do at home.
I bought mine from Amazon. been using over a year and works absolutely great for storing coffee.

[h=1]Osaka Vacuum Sealed Canister $20 for 40oz container.[/h]

 

[Musicphan]

Best you can do is keep everything as airtight as possible... and drink more

 

[ensoluna]

Yep, but first, get the air OUT first and then keep them air-tight :+)

 

[Mr.Peaberry]

please do not freeze the roasted beans. that is not good.
you can use vacuum canisters to store them. that is what we do at home.
I bought mine from Amazon. been using over a year and works absolutely great for storing coffee.

Osaka Vacuum Sealed Canister $20 for 40oz container.


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I rarely disagree with anything Alex (ensoluna) has to say about coffee. He is about as tenacious as anyone I've ever met when it comes to his desire to know everything there is to know about coffee. One of my early on guru's, Michael Sivitz, has explored the issue of long term coffee storage in a very scientific manner...no big surprise since the dude was a chemical engineer! Turns out that the demon is NOT the freezing of the coffee, but the NOT KNOWING the proper way in which to freeze coffee. Below is a link to Mr. Sivitz patent on a process for keeping coffee fresh in long term storage. It's very informative, and not as hard to understand as one might think for being "Patent Legalese". Hope you enjoy!


https://www.google.com/patents/US65...ved=0ahUKEwif9fCkxfHTAhWJ7CYKHT00Aa4Q6AEIJzAA

 

[ensoluna]

I rarely disagree with anything Alex (ensoluna) has to say about coffee. He is about as tenacious as anyone I've ever met when it comes to his desire to know everything there is to know about coffee. One of my early on guru's, Michael Sivitz, has explored the issue of long term coffee storage in a very scientific manner...no big surprise since the dude was a chemical engineer! Turns out that the demon is NOT the freezing of the coffee, but the NOT KNOWING the proper way in which to freeze coffee. Below is a link to Mr. Sivitz patent on a process for keeping coffee fresh in long term storage. It's very informative, and not as hard to understand as one might think for being "Patent Legalese". Hope you enjoy!


https://www.google.com/patents/US65...ved=0ahUKEwif9fCkxfHTAhWJ7CYKHT00Aa4Q6AEIJzAA

gee whiz..... this is hell of a long and complicated article!!!! But I will give it a try today. Thanks for trying to expanding my coffee knowledge, Mr. Peaberry / Doug.

 

[Mr.Peaberry]

No...thank YOU for rekindling my desire to learn more. There is so much going on in the world of coffee these days, it just amazes me...makes me wonder what on earth I was thinking fifteen years ago when I decided to forgo the effort to enter the roasting business. Not sure if there is more opportunity now, or just more opportunity to fail based on how fragmented the market for coffee has become. LOL

 

[Kudzu]

I look forward to further discussion of the Michael Sivitz paper by "Mr.Peaberry" and "ensoluna." From the point of a mere consumer of coffee, I found the paper discouraging. It appears to me the criteria Mr. Sivitz finds necessary to preserve coffee flavor are out of reach for the average consumer. Are our efforts futile?

 

[chast]

A little out of reach? We have customers that swear on freezing their beans. Not going to argue with them. There are a lot of roasters who vac and freeze there greens and claim that they still retain there freshness even after years of storage. Unless you evac and give a blast of nitro all bagged coffee has O2. Most home freezers do not go -40 as Sivetz said he used. A blast freezer which is commonly used in ice cream will freeze the product almost instantly preventing ice crystals from forming. My question to those who freeze has always been about the moisture that is on the beans when they defrost. I think to many are reading to deep into how and why. More people purchase ground than whole bean and go through a pound a week so how does all this degradation come into play. Some of our beans rest 3-5 days before we sell them. Others claim they have to be roasted and ground the same day and another self proclaimed guru said 24 hours. So unless you have a Headspace Analyzer to prove zero O2 levels all bagged coffee is oxidizing away. Roasters who place their coffee in supermarkets that sit on the shelf for long periods of time and claim it is fresh! We would rather sell a 1/4 lb bag of coffee to someone who would take two weeks to consume a one pound bag. Sitting here waiting for the electrician to finish wiring our addition I decided to throw in this rant. We had a Mocon anaylyzer and it proved to be a waste of time as we only roast per order. When I started roasting I got hung up in all these rules for coffee and after a short while I found many untrue.

 

[shadow745]

To each his/her own, but I KNOW that vacuum packing/deep freezing roasted coffee has merit. I started experimenting with this for decaf I was using on a commercial level. Thankfully not many customers ordered decaf as to me it's a waste of what could be awesome coffee otherwise and I of course hated to waste coffee/profit. The decaf espresso blend we got from the roaster was good from day 3-8 and then just fell off from there. Was useless afterward... I vacuum packed about 1/2 lb. when it was just a few days post roast, tossed in our deep freezer and let it sit for 5-6 weeks. Thawed it out and it was as if it was roasted just a few days prior to that.

Once we sold the mobile setup I started buying my coffee for home use in 5# bulk. Let it degas/age 4-5 days post roast then vacuum packed in pint wide mouth Mason jars with a FoodSaver and placed in our deep freezer, which was kept at least -20F. Anytime I needed a jar I would thaw one out overnight and had enough for 8-9 doubles. The taste/texture/aroma was identical to when it was 4-5 days old. I used tons of that particular coffee so was very familiar with the characteristics.

Now that I home roast I have no need to buy in bulk and store as I once did, but it's a great way to store coffee somewhat long term and still have it really fresh when you need it. Biggest key to it all IMBHO is doing this when it's super fresh.

 

[ensoluna]

Great posting. Finally someone with hands-on experience!
thanks Shadow745! So I guess that vacuum + deep freezing really works when you buy bulk roasted beans.

 

[Mr.Peaberry]

I look forward to further discussion of the Michael Sivitz paper by "Mr.Peaberry" and "ensoluna." From the point of a mere consumer of coffee, I found the paper discouraging. It appears to me the criteria Mr. Sivitz finds necessary to preserve coffee flavor are out of reach for the average consumer. Are our efforts futile?

Hi Kudzu. Just remember that Michael Sivitz was professionally connected to the commercial processes for storing and distributing coffee, so the patent was not intended to to address the fickle behaviors of the consumer; however, having proven what is needed on a commercial level, much of what is learned can be applied on the consumer level. According to the research done by Mr. Sivitz, low cost consumer vacuum units are not powerful enough to evacuate all of the oxygen from a storage container, so a combination of nitrogen/argon flushing and vacuum evacuation is preferred. How long one wishes to store the beans becomes the essential question. If I was storing green beans for long term storage...like a year or longer... I'd be using argon flushing rather than nitrogen flushing because argon lays under the oxygen like oil under water, and is the preferred flushing gas by wineries. For the consumer, nitrogen gas is cheaper and more readily available, but remember that there is still a percentage of oxygen in the gas...you'd have to go to a commercial gas supplier to get nitrogen gas that is so close to pure that the amount of oxygen is insignificant. Anyhow...not trying to bore anyone, just sayin...if you want the best results, you just have to know how to control the variables that's what I'm trying to say. The combination of using a rigid, gas impermeable container, such as a glass jar, vacuum and nitrogen flush (twice), in my opinion, would be the best way to store green or roasted coffee on the consumer level. I would store in quantities of what would be consumed in one week, and then let the beans sit overnight to thaw out. I don't imagine the condensation would degrade the beans significantly over a week, and if to the taste of the elite coffee connoisseur there is a noticeable difference, then freeze for daily use.
Good input by chast & Shadow745. I think I'll look into the blast freezer. Perhaps there is a small version that could be obtained on a budget!

 

[chast]

George Howell has some videos on YouTube on freezing greens and roasted.

 

[chast]

I use food grade nitrogen which they claim is 99% O2 free. I use the same in my nitro coffee. I only blast nitro if the customer requests it if they are sending coffee to someone.

 

[chast]

If you really want to flash freeze your beans, get some liquid nitrogen. -320 degrees in seconds!!